


Call Them Scars

by nevereverever



Series: changed forever [3]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Codependency, Delirium, Fever, Gen, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Multi, Pre-Canon, Sickfic, Soltryce Academy (Critical Role), Warning: Trent Ikithon, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:49:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27663626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevereverever/pseuds/nevereverever
Summary: They're a team, they fit together like pieces of a puzzle. But Bren holds them together, and when he is taken by fever and fear, they start to fall apart.
Relationships: Astrid & Eodwulf & Bren Aldric Ermendrud, Astrid & Eodwulf (Critical Role), Astrid/Eodwulf/Bren Aldric Ermendrud
Series: changed forever [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1926925
Comments: 13
Kudos: 86





	Call Them Scars

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, will I ever stop hurting them? Probably not. I do it out of love. Mind the tags buddies, this is pretty bleak.
> 
> Oh! Series note: I was informed by a kind reader that, in general, the name is spelled Eadwulf, not Eodwulf. He's a fictional character so it doesn't matter that much, but I figure if the wiki says it so should I. So I've gone back and fixed that in the two other fics in this series as well.

"He stopped sweating," Astrid said the moment the door closed behind him. Bren was lying in her lap, his eyes pressed tightly shut. Drying tear tracks ran down his fever flushed cheeks. His forearms were wrapped in clean, white bandages. “He’s dehydrated but I can’t give him very much water or he’ll fucking choke.”

"Has he woken up since I left?" Astrid shook her head. She adjusted the cloth laid across his forehead. Eadwulf sat next to her and she melted into his side, exhausted. The tiny bed wasn't large enough for the three of them, but being apart wasn't an option, not after the day they'd had. He wrapped his arm around her waist to keep her upright.

"This is awful," Eadwulf whispered into the still air. She nodded. The room smelled of sweat and blood and he didn't want to take a full breath. Bren whimpered softly and reached out from something or someone that wasn’t there. Wulf took his twitching hand and held it tightly. There was blood underneath his fingernails.

"I don't know what we're supposed to do," she replied, shaky. She squeezed a few more drops of water into Bren's mouth and watched him swallow. "He keeps getting worse and I don't-" She stopped, too afraid of what her next words might be, what awful truths she might spill and never get to take back.

"I know," he replied. "Gods above, I'm fucking spent." She nodded into his shoulder and stayed there for a moment.

"Was class alright?" she asked, dipping the cloth in her hand into a bowl of water teetering on the windowsill. She wrung it out and ran it gently across Bren's cheeks, collarbones, wrists. Rivulets ran down his face, the cool, clean water cutting through the drying tears.

"It's always worse alone, but I'm fine. I'm better than he is," he said. The days were always longer when they were separated, the bruises deeper. "We both need to sleep tonight or we're not going to make it through tomorrow."

"We can take shifts, one of us has to stay up with him. I tried to sleep while you were gone..." she fiddled with one of the bandages, trying to smooth out a small crease. "One of us has to stay up with him." She smoothed a few strands of hair off of Bren's forehead, unnerved by the heat. 

“You can sleep first if you want. I have a spell to copy before morning,” he replied, a whisper of joy drifting through his voice. Astrid bumped his shoulder with hers, glad beyond words for the distraction. A new spell was always something the three of them would celebrate, little stolen moments of victory and pride to shine through long, hard weeks of training.

“Lucky. Is it something interesting?” He shrugged, but a smile crept across his lips, his eyes crinkling at the edges. He bumped her shoulder back. 

“Hold Person.” A look of realization fell across his face and the smile was gone as quickly as it had come, “I wonder if Master Ikithon meant for me to use it on… Fuck.” She nodded and their moment of levity faded. They settled into an uncomfortable silence. 

Astrid couldn’t quite sleep, instead falling into a soft doze against Eadwulf’s left arm while he wrote with his right. Then Bren would thrash and wake her and she would dampen the cloth lain across his forehead and attempt to coax another few drops of water into him. As the night crawled on, their moments of rest became few and far between as their friend fought through an ever-growing fever. They could feel the exhaustion dragging on their bones as they took turns cooling him and calming him and hushing him and holding him. 

It was late, long after they should have been asleep when Bren woke for a moment. Eadwulf roused from his half-slumber at the sound of Bren mumbling nonsense. His gaze was fever bright and unfocused.

"Hey. Hey. You in there, Arschloch?" He said. He gave Bren's hand a firm squeeze.

"Need sulphur. I'm burning. Need-," Bren rasped, the Zemnian thick on his tongue. Astrid barked out a watery laugh. There was nothing funny about it. After everything they'd been through, this was some of the most fucking terrifying, but- er brennt, her Bren. 

She remembered sneaking in through his bedroom window in Blumenthal and watching as he lit a small flame in the palm of his hand. 'It will burn you,' he'd said when she reached out for it. _'Why doesn't it hurt you,'_ she didn't ask. _‘You should be careful,'_ she didn’t warn.

“Teach me,” she’d said. 

"This boy and his fucking fire,” she spit. Everywhere his skin touched hers scorched as if there was something on fire inside of him. There always had been, really. Her laughs started to feel more like sobs. There was nothing funny about it. He was burning, he would be ash soon. Eadwulf’s grasp on her waist tightened.

“I won't go," Bren mumbled, "too bright. Please put it out." A cry wrenched its way from Astrid's throat. She clapped a hand over her mouth as if to stop her misery from escaping her head.

"We can't let him die, Wulf, we can't let him die," she said, muffled into her own palm. Tears she'd held back for hours started to well in her eyes.

"We won't. We can't and we won't. But this is awful and I can't do it alone so I need you to toughen up." She sniffled and wiped her eyes, nodding. He was right, she was acting like a child. “I need you here right now.”

"Help me, I can't." Bren muttered, his normally precise speech slurred and broken, “it hurts, it’s burning me. Please, please.” He turned his face into her thigh and whimpered. She could feel the fever through the fabric and when she blinked more tears fell from her eyes. One landed on his forehead and she swiped it away with her thumb. He flinched away from her hand, a spasm that ran down the length of his spine.

“We’ll fix it. I promise, Brennie. We’re here, we’ll help you,” she said in their native tongue in the vain hope that he could hear her, that she could numb the pain and fear. She kept whispering, a litany of soothing nonsense, we love you and you’re so strong and sleep now, my sweet, stupid, burning boy.

“I need the-" Eadwulf snapped. He pulled the cool cloth from her hand without finishing the thought and dabbed at Bren's cheeks and lips. His breathing started to even out and his eyes fell shut again, whatever consciousness had gripped him falling away in the face of the affliction he was fighting. His grip on their hands slackened, but neither of them let go.

"I'm sorry," she sniffed, wiping roughly at her face with her free hand. "Pelor's Light, this is fucking torture.” She pressed her eyes tightly shut and fought against her tears, taking slow and measured breaths. 

“Astrid, please,” Eadwulf said with tension in his voice. They sat in the quiet for a few minutes, just listening to Bren whimpering and the wind outside the windows. He was right, she was no use to them as a crying mess. Even when they weren’t being observed, she still had a job to do. She had to make it to the next day, to drag her boys with her. How was she supposed to be the best without her idiots to be compared to? How was she supposed to serve the Empire without the people that had become like extensions of her own body? She shook her head. It would not end like this.

She straightened her spine and pulled her loose hair back into a neat ponytail. This was just another puzzle, another training exercise to solve, just like she had solved all the others. 

“Either we get the fever to break before sunrise or we go plead for Master Ikithon's mercy," she said firmly. 

"We can't go to the Master." Eadwulf traced cool lines of water across Bren's arms and chest and she wondered if he could cast a spell that way, in sigils of water on feverish skin. "He told us to handle this. If we go to him-"

"He'll be angrier with us if we let Bren die, idiot. He wouldn't want all his work lost.” She brushed her fingers across his forehead and over his arms, right to where skin gave way to bandages. Eadwulf stilled and squeezed his eyes tight shut.

“That’s a shitty way to put it, Sassa,” he said, his voice tight and angry. She sighed and leaned over to put her chin on his shoulder. Just like she wasn’t useful in her fear, he was not going to be useful in his anger. 

“I didn’t mean it like that, you know that Wulf. I’m just saying-” He cut her off. 

“Yeah, I know. I’m tired, I’m pissed.” He took a deep breath and pressed a kiss into her hair. It wasn’t an apology, but she didn’t need one. "We can deal with this ourselves. It's a test, he's testing us. We can do it ourselves."

"Maybe. But we've failed tests before and survived. If the only way for him to live is for us to fail… If he doesn't get better, I'm getting Trent at dawn. If it's a test, then I'll take the blame." He rested his cheek on the crown of her head. Bren let out a high and breathy whine that pierced the air like a dagger. They both winced. Bren was usually so quiet in his suffering, always the one to bandage their wounds before his, to sew himself back together while he thought they were sleeping.

"Fine. But when Bren gets better and gives you those sad eyes of his while he stitches you up, I'm not going to save you." She let out half a chuckle and carded her fingers through his sweaty, auburn hair. His eyelids fluttered, but he didn’t wake.

"I can take it,” she replied, smoothing out the wrinkle between Bren’s eyebrows. "Alright. We need a plan to cool him down, his stupid brain is boiling in there."

"We could get him in the shower?" Eadwulf said, his tone flat. She laughed again. Gods, why couldn’t she stop laughing? What twisted, awful part of her thought this was funny? 

“That sounds terrible.” He laughed too, joyless. 

“Mama used to do it when someone showed up at our door with a fever. She made us drag in fresh water from the well, even when it was pouring out.”

"Your mama would know what to do,” she said, her mind drifting back to warm hearths and gentle hands, soft things, things they didn’t have anymore because they didn’t need them. They were stronger than that. He hummed assent. “Can you carry him?” 

Wulf nodded with a grimace. He carefully bundled Bren in his arms and stood, settling his friend's head against his chest. He braced for a second, waiting for the noise of pain, but none came. Bren was limp and heavy. The silence felt even heavier. The walk to the small bathroom the three of them shared was short, luckily. It wasn't big or fancy, they were trainees, students, they didn't require much more than a place to wash off the drying sweat of a day's work or the tacky blood from an injury well deserved.

“He’s gonna hate this,” Wulf said grimly. He sat with Bren still cradled in his arms on the hard, cool tile and Astrid followed suit. He set Bren's near limp body between them and reached across him to tap Astrid's chin. She looked up at him, into his eyes just barely shining with unshed tears.

"He's gonna hate this," he repeated through grit teeth. "He might fight or shake or scream and the two things we can't let him do are hurt himself and wake anyone. You understand?" 

"Ja. Yes, I get it." She threw her arm across his waist, pinning his elbow against his body, and twisted her leg over his so she could press her weight against him if she had to. Eadwulf mirrored her. It was half a cradle and half a straightjacket. She pressed a kiss to Bren's temple, lingering just a moment too long for it to be checking his temperature. She didn't have a free hand so she traced somatic components against his skin and the spectral hand she summoned turned the knob.

Cold water poured for the showerhead, drenching them, clothes and all. Bren's eyes flew open, sheer terror and confusion gripping him. He tensed in their arms, fighting weakly against their hold. He cried out, but Wulf pressed a hand over his mouth before he could do it again.

"Shh, Brennie. We have to, I’m sorry," Wulf said, pressing his temple into Bren's shoulder. The water warmed up a little and it felt like rain. Eadwulf let his hand fall.

"Take them out, please, I can't, I can't," Bren mumbled, garbled and so filled with fear that the air soured around his words. Astrid felt a tear slip from her eye, but it was washed away in a second by the water that pounded against them. Bren sobbed, the force of it so strong that he gagged, and with nothing in his stomach he just painfully dry heaved over the tile floor.

"They burn. Please, they're hurting me," he coughed. His arms strained against their hold but they did not let go. His fists clenched and unclenched as if he was grasping at the falling water, trying to hold on to something that was already gone. He caught a handful of Astrid’s tunic instead and held tight to it.

“It’ll be over soon, little spark. You’re okay, you’re okay. It’s just us, we won’t hurt you,” Wulf murmured. He started to rock, just slightly, taking more of Bren’s weight and swaying with the shivering boy in his arms. Back and forth, back and forth. “Sassa, do you have a Suggestion left?”

“I do but-” she stopped. But those spells aren’t meant for people you love. But we promised not to do that to each other. But how can I take his choice from him when he’s like this. Bren cried out again, hoarse and thick with tears.

“I know. I know,” Eadwulf said, and she honestly couldn’t tell who he meant it for. She gathered herself and rubbed her thumb across the pendant she used as her focus.

 **“Relax, Bren. Let us take care of you.”** Her words tasted syrupy as they left her lips and she would have hated herself for it if Bren hadn’t gone pliant in their arms, the tension and fight seeping out of him. “How long do we have to do this, Wulfie?”

"Until his fever breaks,” he replied. He paused for a moment and the sound of the spray hitting the tile felt deafening. “I hate our fucking master. I hate him," Eadwulf whispered, so low that she could barely hear him.

"Don't," Astrid warned, tone sharp as broken glass, "we'll be stronger when it's over. If this is what we have to do for the Empire, then we do it." Bren shivered in her arms and her words did not feel like her own. She curled tighter around him like she could protect him from the world, from herself if she could just press closer.

That was how Trent found them come morning: on the floor of their shower in their slowly drying school clothes, Astrid and Eadwulf twined around a peacefully sleeping Bren. They didn’t even awaken when he knelt to check Bren’s temperature, finding no trace of the fever he’d expected in the aftermath of the experiment. They were stronger than he’d first assumed, these three. His lips curled into a cold and brittle smile. 

When they woke, what would have been several hours late for their morning lessons, they found a note from their master that he had been summoned away for other matters, and that they were to use the day to study. Sitting next to it was a small vial of a light blue-tinged liquid labeled ‘antipyretic, for next time’.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed that, I read it back before posting and hoo boy. If you'd like to leave me a note, I'd be ecstatic.


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